Cross-gender acting

Cross-sex acting refers to actors or actresses portraying a character of the opposite sex. It is distinct from both transgender and cross-dressing character roles.

Mary Pickford as Cedric Errol in a lobby card for the 1921 film Little Lord Fauntleroy

In this sketch by Marguerite Martyn, the College Club of St. Louis was in rehearsal for “The Amazons,” a play by Arthur Wing Pinero, in which all the parts were played by women, April 1910.

Traditions of male-only performance cultures

Many societies prohibited women from performing on stage, so boys and men took the female roles. In the ancient Greek theatre men played females, as they did in English Renaissance theatre and continue to do in Japanese kabuki theatre (see onnagata). In Chinese opera specialized male actors who play female roles (dàn) are referred to as nándàn (男旦); the practice arose during the Qing dynasty due to imperial prohibitions against women performing on stage, considered detrimental to public morality.[1]

Kabuki actor in Japan

Japanese kabuki theatre began in the 17th century with all-female troupes performing both male and female roles. In 1629 the disrepute of kabuki performances (or of their audiences) led to the banning of women from the stage, but kabuki's great popularity inspired the formation of all-male troupes to carry on the theatrical genre. In kabuki, the portrayal of female characters by men is known as onnagata. The practice is detailed in a story of the same name by the Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. All roles in Noh dramas are traditionally played by male actors; actors playing female roles wear feminine costumes and female-featured masks. The Takarazuka Revue is a contemporary all-female Japanese acting company, known for their elaborate productions of stage musicals. Takarazuka actresses specialize in either male or female roles, with male-role actresses receiving top billing.

Nearly all the characters in Chinese Opera were performed by men; they cross-dressed to play the roles of women. A famous cross-dressing opera singer is Mei Lanfang. From early 20th century, Yue opera is developed from all male to all female genre. Although male performers were introduced into this opera in 1950s and 1960s, today, Yue opera is still associated as the only all female opera and the second most popular opera in China.

In Renaissance England, women were forbidden from performing on stage,[2] so female roles in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were originally played by cross-dressing men or boys. (See also Stage Beauty.) Therefore, the original productions of the above-mentioned Shakespeare plays actually involved double-cross-dressing: male actors playing female characters disguising themselves as males.[3] Academic research into the contemporary attitudes towards the practise have yielded a variety of interpretations. Historian Laura Levine argues that "an all-male acting troupe was the natural and unremarkable product of a culture whose conception of gender was "teleologically male".[4]

Women as men

Cross-dressing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain was frequent among actors, and the theater was at the time the most popular form of entertainment.[5] There was a fascination with female cross-dressers particularly (women dressed as men), who were "extremely popular" in the "Golden Age Comedia".[6] Male actors might play the "women dressed as men" parts. Spain eventually found this cross-dressing to be threatening to social order, and passed laws targeting female transvestites throughout the 1600s.[7] Despite the negative reactions and disapproval, it continued to remain very popular in the comedia.[5]

Theatre, operas, plays, ballets and pantomime

Katarina Karnéus as Serse in a 2009 production of Serse at the Royal Swedish Opera.

Sarah Bernhardt as Prince Hamlet in June 1899.

A travesti is a theatrical term referring to the portrayal of a character in an opera, play, or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex. More specifically, a theatrical or operatic role in which an actress appears in male clothing is called a "breeches role" ("pants role" or "trouser role"), and roles once performed by a male soprano castrato may instead be performed by a female mezzo-soprano or contralto.

In the late 19th century, one of the most famous actresses was Vesta Tilley, who worked in a music hall from age five well into her fifties. In the late 1890s, she was the highest paid woman in Britain. What made her so famous was her tendency to dress as a man and act out "masculine" scenes and roles.[8] Centuries before, Julie d'Aubigny, aka "La Maupin" (1670–1707), had also been famous for her breeches roles.

In 1904, Nina Boucicault originated the theatrical tradition of cross-sex casting for Peter Pan, continued thereafter by Maude Adams, Marilyn Miller, Eva Le Gallienne, Sandy Duncan, and Cathy Rigby, among others.[9] In 1954 Mary Martin portrayed the title character in the musical Peter Pan. "The boy who would never grow up" is a classic trouser role, as is Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro (by Beaumarchais).

In pantomime plays that are traditionally adaptations of fairy tales and performed around Christmastide, the role of lead male was once commonly played by a principal boy—a young, attractive, female. This practise has fallen out of favour recently, with popular male television and pop stars taking these roles. Conversely, the role of a pantomime dame, a middle aged woman played by a man in drag for comic relief, is still one of the mainstays of panto.

Similarly, Georgy Millyar played a role of Baba Yaga, an ugly old woman with supernatural abilities in a dozen of films, including Vasilisa the Beautiful (1940) and Jack Frost (1964). He used to say that an actress does not ever allow anyone to make her that ugly, while he does.[10]

Modern practice

In animations and video games, it is not unusual for female actors to voice young male characters. Notable example are Nancy Cartwright voicing Bart Simpson in The Simpsons and Junko Takeuchi voicing Naruto Uzumaki in the anime series Naruto. An example of a male actor voicing a female character is Bob Peterson as Roz in Monsters, Inc..

When the casting director of a production decides to employ cross-sex acting, selecting the actors in this way is sometimes also called "cross-sex casting" or simply "cross-casting".

In film and television

see also Cross-dressing in film and television (mainly listing characters cross-dressing in the frame of a story, rather than actors cross-dressing to portray a role of the opposite sex)

Release year	Title	Actor	Role	Direction	Role	Language	Note(s)
1914	A Busy Day	Charlie Chaplin	Wife	male to female	comedic	English
1914	Sweedie the Swatter	Wallace Beery	Sweedie	male to female	comedic	English	The first of a series of Sweedie films, made between 1914 and 1916. This short was released 13 July 1914.
1920	Treasure Island	Shirley Mason	Jim Hawkins	female to male	dramatic	English
1921	Little Lord Fauntleroy	Mary Pickford	Cedric Errol	female to male	dramatic	English	Mary Pickford starred as both Cedric Errol and Widow Errol.
1924	Peter Pan	Betty Bronson	Peter Pan	female to male	dramatic	English
1932	The Old Dark House	Elspeth Dudgeon	Sir Roderick Femm	female to male	dramatic	English	credited as 'John Dudgeon'
1936	Stars on Parade	Arthur Lucan	Old Mother Riley	male to female	musical	English	The first of 17 films with Old Mother Riley
1936	Sathi Leelavathi	M. K. Mani	Lakshmi	male to female	dramatic	Tamil	[11]
1939	Wilton's Zoo	Annie van Ees	Jan Grovers (Boefje)	female to male	dramatic	Dutch	45-year-old Annie van Ees plays the 16-year-old Boefje. She had played this role since 1922 in theatre.
1942	Cactus Makes Perfect	Monte Collins	Ma Stooge	male to female	comedic	English
1949	Kind Hearts and Coronets	Alec Guinness	Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne	male to female	comedic	English	Alec Guinness plays eight members of the aristocratic D'Ascoyne family.
1954	The Belles of St. Trinian's	Alastair Sim	Headmistress Fritton	male to female	comedic	English	Alastair Sim plays both Millicent Fritton and her brother, Clarence Fritton.
1957	Blue Murder at St Trinian's	Alastair Sim	Headmistress Fritton	male to female	comedic	English
1959	The Mouse that Roared	Peter Sellers	Grand Duchess Gloriana XII	male to female	comedic	English
1962	Sjors en Sjimmie op het pirateneiland	Jos van der Linden	Sjimmie	female to male	dramatic	Dutch	Sjimmie is played by director Henk van der Linden's daughter in blackface.
1965	Sjors en Sjimmie en de gorilla	Jos van der Linden	Sjimmie	female to male	dramatic	Dutch
1967	Bhakta Prahlada	Roja Ramani	Prahlada	female to male	dramatic	Telugu	[12]
1976−present	various	Barry Humphries	Dame Edna Everage	male to female	comedic	English
1977	Sjors en Sjimmie en het zwaard van Krijn	Mariska Fikkie	Sjimmie	female to male	dramatic	Dutch	credited as 'Mar Fikkie'
1977	Die Vorstadtkrokodile	Birgit Komanns	Kurt	female to male	dramatic	German	voice dubbed by Oliver Rohrbeck
1978	Monkey (Saiyūki)	Masako Natsume	Tripitaka	female to male	dramatic	Japanese
1979	Monty Python's Life of Brian	Terry Jones	Brian's mother	male to female	comedic	English
1980	The Empire Strikes Back	Marjorie Eaton	Palpatine	female to male	dramatic	English	voice dubbed by Clive Revill original release version only
1981	Göta kanal eller Vem drog ur proppen?	Christer Lindarw	Queen Silvia	male to female	comedic	Swedish	Cameo
1981	Sopor	Margaretha Krook	Gösta Bohman	female to male	comedic	Swedish	Small role
1982	Fanny and Alexander	Stina Ekblad	Ismael Retzinsky	female to male	dramatic	Swedish
1982	The Year of Living Dangerously	Linda Hunt	Billy Kwan	female to male	dramatic	English	Hunt won Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1985	Didi und die Rache der Enterbten	Dieter Hallervorden	Florentine	male to female	comedic	German
1986	The Golden Child	J.L. Reate	The Golden Child	female to male	dramatic	English	Reate was nominated to a Young Artist Awards for Best Young Actress[13]
1986	Haunted Honeymoon	Dom DeLuise	Aunt Kate	male to female	comedic	English
1988	Hairspray	Divine	Edna Turnblad	male to female	comedic	English
1988	Coming to America	Arsenio Hall	Extremely Ugly Girl	male to female	comedic	English
1989	Back to the Future Part II	Michael J. Fox	Marlene McFly	male to female	comedic	English	Michael J. Fox plays three characters - Marty McFly, Marty McFly Jr. and Marlene McFly.
1991	Hook	Glenn Close	Gutless	female to male	dramatic	English	Cameo
1991	Nothing but Trouble	John Candy	Eldona	male to female	comedic	English
1992−1997	Martin	Martin Lawrence	Sheneneh Mama Payne	male to female	comedic	English
1992	Swordsman II	Brigitte Lin	Invincible Asia	female to male	dramatic	English	Asia is a man who has castrated himself.[14]
1992	Orlando	Tilda Swinton Quentin Crisp	Orlando Elizabeth I	female to male male to female	dramatic	English	The character of 'Orlando' changes gender, female to male. [15]
1993	The Beverly Hillbillies	Diedrich Bader	Jethrine Bodine	male to female	comedic	English	Bader also plays Jethrine's twin brother Jethro.
1995	Filmpje!	Paul de Leeuw	Annie de Rooij	male to female	comedic	Dutch	Paul de Leeuw introduced the character of Annie de Rooij in 1992 in the third seasons of his television show De schreeuw van De Leeuw. Annie was married to Bob de Rooij, also played by Paul de Leeuw.
1996	A Very Brady Sequel	RuPaul	Mrs. Cummings	male to female	comedic	English
1996	The Nutty Professor	Eddie Murphy	Mama / Granny Klump	male to female	comedic	English
1999	Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo	Big Boy	Fluisa	male to female	comedic	English
1999	Tyrone	Coolio	Cherone	male to female	comedic	English	Coolio also plays Cherone's brothers, Tyrone & Jerome
1999	Liang Po Po The Movie	Jack Neo	Liang Po Po / Liang Xi Mei	male to female	comedic	Chinese and English	an 85 year old granny played by Singaporean filmmaker and actor Jack Neo.
2000	Nutty Professor II: The Klumps	Eddie Murphy	Mama / Granny Klump	male to female	comedic	English
2000	Kevin & Perry Go Large	Kathy Burke	Perry	female to male	comedic	English
2002	EvenHand	iO Tillett Wright	Toby	female to male	dramatic	English
2003	Girls Will Be Girls	Jack Plotnick Clinton Leupp Jeffery Roberson	Evie Harris Coco Peru Varla Jean Merman	male to female	comedic	English	All the female characters in this film were played by males.
2004	De duistere diamant	Peter Van Den Begin	Tante Sidonia	male to female	comedic	Dutch
2004	My Nikifor	Krystyna Feldman	Nikifor	female to male	dramatic	Polish	Feldman won 2005 Polish Film Awards for best actress
2005	Diary of a Mad Black Woman	Tyler Perry	Madea	male to female	comedic	English
2005	Alatriste	Blanca Portillo	Emilio Bocanegra	female to male	dramatic	Spanish
2006	Madea's Family Reunion	Tyler Perry	Madea	male to female	comedic	English
2006	Black Christmas	Dean Friss	Agnes Lenz	male to female	horror	English
2007	I'm Not There	Cate Blanchett	Jude Quinn	female to male	dramatic	English	Jude Quinn is stylized after Bob Dylan
2007	Hairspray	John Travolta	Edna Turnblad	male to female	comedic	English
2007	Norbit	Eddie Murphy	Rasputia	male to female	comedic	English
2007	St Trinian's	Rupert Everett	Miss Camilla Fritton	male to female	comedic	English	As in the earlier St. Trinian's films, a man plays the character of the Headmistress, Miss Fritton.
2007	Negima!!	Yukina Kashiwa	Negi Springfield	female to male	dramatic	Japanese	Live action adaptation of the manga Negima! Magister Negi Magi. The main character, Negi Springfield, is a 10-year-old mage.
2008	Meet the Browns	Tyler Perry	Madea	male to female	comedic	English
2009	Madea Goes to Jail	Tyler Perry	Madea	male to female	comedic	English
2009	St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold	Rupert Everett	Miss Camilla Fritton	male to female	comedic	English
2011	30 Rock	Margaret Cho	Kim Jong-Il	female to male	comedic	English	Cho was nominated to an Emmy for her guest role
2011	Jack and Jill	Adam Sandler David Spade	Jill Sadelstein Monica	male to female	comedic	English	Sandler plays both Jack and Jill Sadelstein
2012	Cloud Atlas	Hugo Weaving Ben Whishaw Zhou Xun Susan Sarandon	Nurse Noakes Georgette Talbot Yosouf Suleiman	male to female male to female female to male female to male	dramatic	English
2014	Black Butler Live Action	Ayame Goriki	Earl Kiyohara Genpu	female to male	dramatic	Japanese
2014	Mrs. Brown's Boys D'Movie	Brendan O'Carroll	Agnes Brown	male to female	comedic	English
2014	Peter Pan Live!	Allison Williams	Peter Pan	female to male	dramatic	English	[16]
2014	Predestination	Sarah Snook	The Unmarried Mother	female to male	dramatic	English	The character changes gender, female to male.
2015	Bon Bini Holland	Jandino Asporaat	Judeska, Gerrie	male to female	comedic	Dutch
2016−2019	Baskets	Louie Anderson	Christine Baskets	male to female	comedic	English	Emmy Award for Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
2018	Suspiria	Tilda Swinton	Dr. Jozef Klemperer	female to male	dramatic	English/German	One of three roles played by Swinton in the film
2019	The Twentieth Century	Louis Negin Emmanuel Schwartz Annie St-Pierre	Mother Lady Violet J. Israël Tarte	male to female male to female female to male	comedic	English	Film deliberately intended to come across unrealistic and dreamlike; also utilizes colour-blind casting in two other roles.

Meta examples

• Tootsie (1982) - The character Michael Dorsey (portrayed by Dustin Hoffman) star as Dorothy Michaels in the show-within-show soap opera Southwest General
• Victor/Victoria (1982) - The character Victoria Grant (portrayed by Julie Andrews) pretends to be Count Victor Grezinski and finds work as a female impersonator.
• Flickan vid stenbänken (1989) - The character Carolin (Anna Edlund) briefly portrays a man in a (show-within-show) play.
• Shakespeare in Love (1998) - The character Viola de Lesseps (portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow) disguises herself as Thomas Kent and then plays the part of Juliet in the show-within-show Romeo and Juliet.
• Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) - The character Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) dresses as nanny Mrs. Doubtfire and is hired to host a children's show.

Video Game examples

• Super Mario Sunshine (2002) - Bowser Jr was portrayed by Dolores Rogers
• Mario Strikers Charged (2007) Caety Sagoian voiced as Bowser Jr for the first time.
• New Super Mario Bros Wii (2009) - A few Koopalings, including Larry, Lemmy and Morton were voiced by Lani Minella.
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (2010) - For the JP version, Makoto Naegi was portrayed by Megumi Ogata. In the English version, Chihiro Fujsaki was voiced by Dorothy Fahn and for the Japanese version, His VA was Kōki Miyata.
• Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (2012) - Hajime Hinata was voiced by Minami Takayama while Nagito Komaeda was voiced by Makoto's VA; Megumi Ogata.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (2012) - Pit was portrayed by Minami Takayama, Who majorly voiced as him for the Super Smash Bros series.
• Mario Kart 8 (2014) - Larry Koopa and Lemmy Koopa were voiced by their current VA's, Michelle Hippe and Carlee McManus, though Lemmy's new VA was not disclosed until almost 5 years later for the 3DS remake game Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey.
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (2017) - Female Seiyuu Megumi Hayashibara voiced as the Ultimate Deceive; Shuichi Saihara, while Kōichi Yamadera voiced as the only female Monokub; Monophanie along with the rest of the kubs.

See also

• Cross-dressing in film and television
• Cross-dressing in literature
• Köçek, a Turkish term for a young male entertainer dressed as a young woman
• List of transgender-related topics
• List of transgender characters in film and television

References

1. Guanda Wu (2013). "Should Nandan Be Abolished? The Debate over Female Impersonation in Early Republican China and Its Underlying Cultural Logic". Asian Theatre Journal. 30 (1): 189–206. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.818.4786. doi:10.1353/atj.2013.0008. ISSN 1527-2109.
2. Globe Theatre Female Roles
3. Maclennan, Ian Burns (1994). "If I were a woman": A study of the boy player in the Elizabethan public theatre (PhD thesis).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
4. Howard, Jean E. (1988). "Crossdressing, The Theatre, and Gender Struggle in Early Modern England" (PDF). Shakespeare Quarterly. 39 (4): 419. doi:10.2307/2870706. JSTOR 2870706. Retrieved October 21, 2012.
5. Watson, Brian. "Crossdressing, Crossculture: Conceptions and Perceptions of Crossdressing in Golden Age Madrid and Tudor-Stuart London": 6. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
6. Seagraves, Rosie (August 2013). "SHE AS HE: CROSS-DRESSING, THEATER, AND "IN-BETWEENS" IN EARLY MODERN SPAIN": 1. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
7. Watson, Brian. "Crossdressing, Crossculture: Conceptions and Perceptions of Crossdressing in Golden Age Madrid and Tudor-Stuart London": 5. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
8. Steinbach, Susie L. . Understanding the Victorians. London: Routledge, 2012. 192-193. Print.
9. Pilkington, Angel M. "Peter Pan: Myth and Fantasy", Archived 2009-01-08 at the Wayback Machine Midsummer Magazine, 2000, reprinted at the Utah Shakespearean Festival website, 2007
10. Актеры советского и российского кино (Actors of Soviet and Russian cinema) (in Russian) http://rusactors.ru/m/millyar/
11. Sathi Leelavathi (PDF) (press book). Coimbatore: Manorama Films. 1936.
12. "Yesteryear Telugu diva recalls unexpected film debut 50 yrs ago". Manorama Online. October 1, 2018. Retrieved 2019-08-29.
13. "Awards for J.L. Reate", IMDb. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
14. Hammond, Stefan; Wilkins, Mike (1996), Sex and Zen & a bullet in the head, Simon and Schuster, p. 80, ISBN 978-0-684-80341-8
15. Orlando is a drama film and the film's press kit reads "[The director's] research has shown that Crisp's portrayal of Queen Elizabeth may be more than simply an interesting political or comic move", Press kit, sonyclassics.com. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
16. "Allison Williams in 'Peter Pan' continues a cross-dressing tradition". Los Angeles Times. 2014-07-30. Retrieved 2019-08-29.